


Trigonometry

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during <i>The Hundred Days</i>, after dining with Lord and Lady Keith, Jack recalls Queeney's kindness to him shortly after his mother's death and meeting the illustrious Dr. Samuel Johnson, Georgian London luminary and long term houseguest of Queeney's parents, the Thrales.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trigonometry

**Author's Note:**

> Painting of Hester Thrale and Hester Maria "Queeney" Thrale by Sir Joshua Reynolds, ca. 1777

 

" **Queeney" with her Mother, Hester Thrale at the time she met Jack Aubrey.**

 

After having dinner with Lord and Lady Keith earlier that day, Stephen and Jack were finishing their late evening repast and had been discussing Jonathan Swift. Stephen had recently come across Samuel Johnson’s biography of Swift in his _Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets_ and was telling Jack what he remembered of it. They were drinking from the third and last decanter, which was sherry.

“You spent so much time with the Thrales when you were a child, Jack.” Stephen said. “Sure you must have known Dr Johnson quite well.” Jack scraped up the last of the toasted cheese and ate it and then wiped his mouth with the napkin with great satisfaction.

“Oh, no, I should not say that. Yes, he was there all the time, but the children mostly kept away from him. He adored Queeney, of course, but he did not seem to particularly like children in general, especially not boys.” Jack said, drinking his sherry. “I barely remember him speaking a word to me though my general impression was that he wished that I would just go away.” Jack said and he laughed at the memory. “I suppose the only reason I was permitted to stay was that Queeney was so very fond of me and as much as he did not care for me, he loved her more and Mrs Thrale would do virtually anything to humour that poor old man, at least before Mr Thrale’s death.” He poured Stephen another glass of sherry. “Mrs Thrale mentioned me in that book of anecdotes she wrote about Johnson, but luckily, she never actually named me. She just called me “Queeney’s pet” or “the little neighbour boy, J.” She recounted a story of how Dr Johnson wished me to be sent home and that Queeney refused and was ready to be whipped on my account, but that Dr Johnson was so enamoured of her, he insisted that I must stay. I cannot say if it was actually true; Mrs Thrale had a tendency to embellish to say the very least.”

 

 

**Queeney sat up in the dark, her ear cocked, listening, her long dark golden hair falling in her face. She pushed it from her eyes and strode out of her bed to the cot that had been set up on the other side of her room towards the sobs that had awakened her.**

**“Mama, Mama!” Jack cried in his pillow, “No, Mama! Don’t leave me!” Jack sobbed.**

**“Jacky, darling, you are having a bad dream,” Queeney said, leaning down, embracing him and kissing him. “Shhh now, sweetheart. Tis just a dream.” He sat up and looked at her in the dark, his huge blue eyes peering seriously into her face.**

**“I dreamt my mama died.” Jack said and the tears ran down his chubby face. It had been four weeks since Mrs.Aubrey's funeral and a week since Queeney had found him in their garden and brought him into her house.**

**“Come Jacky, come with me, my love,” Queeney said and she kissed him and pulled him out of the cot and took him to her bed and embraced him under the covers. “Now you must be a good boy and fall asleep or Nurse shall come in and whip the both of us.”**

**“Do you love me, Queeney?” He slurred, at the point of falling asleep. She embraced him tighter and kissed his tousled golden head.**

**“I do, Jacky and I shall love you forever and ever, my dear. But you must be a good boy and fall asleep now.” Before she had finished speaking, she could tell he had dropped off, for he was silent and his breathing had changed. She kissed his plump cheek, as soft as a ripe peach and lay her head down next to his and fell asleep.**

**The late morning summer sun streamed through the windows and Jack opened his bleary eyes to Queeney stroking his hair and closed them again.**

**"Come now, Jacky, you sleepy-head." Jack opened his eyes. Queeney was dressed in a golden gown with matching brocade slippers. "You must get up now or there shall be no breakfast. Cook has finished and they are about to do the washing up." He got up and went to his clothes. "No, sweetheart, there is no time to dress. You may do so after breakfast."**

**"Won't they laugh at me?" Jack said dubiously, touching his nightgown.**

**"No, you silly goose. Everyone is gone. Cook is doing the washing up. It shall just be us."**

**She took his hand and they went to the breakfast room and the plates were laid. Jack's mouth watered at the scent of rashers of bacon, sausages and hot kippers, the hot plates of scrambled eggs, the toast, butter and strawberry jam. Queeney served him and poured him tea with a generous amount of milk and sugar and spooned the eggs in his mouth. Jack ate in happy silence until he was stuffed and then Queeney sent him back to her room to dress and wash up. He was gone so long that Queeney went to check on him and washed the jam off his face and hands herself and left him to finish dressing in his freshly laundered breeches, stockings and shirt.**

**He reappeared and the things had been cleared and Queeney had the slate and chalk ready for him.**

**“Now, Jacky, you are so very clever, my dear. Do you remember what you learnt yesterday? Here is the triangle. If this side is four and this side is three, then what is this long side?” Jack looked at it and frowned in concentration.**

**“Five?”**

**“Oh, you are so clever!” Queeney said clapping her hands. She wiped the numbers off the slate. “Now, if the long side is ten and we know that this side is six, then what must this side be? Come, you are so clever, Jacky, you simply must know.”**

**“Four?”**

**“No. Jack, think very, very hard. Look, it is so very simple. This side is ten, if we square it, that is one hundred. Now this side is six, if we square that, it is thirty-six. What is one hundred minus thirty-six?” The butler walked in and they both looked up.**

**“Miss Hester, your Mama and Mr Johnson are awaiting you in the conservatory.” The butler said disapprovingly, frowning down at them. She gasped.**

**“Oh, Jacky, dear, I am dreadfully late! Come and stand outside the door.” They ran to the conservatory and Jack stood by the side of the door as Queeney went in.**

**“Well, Miss, have you forgotten me altogether?” Samuel Johnson said somewhat sternly, looking her up and down. She curtsied to him and to her mother.**

**“I beg your pardon, Sir.” Queeney said, looking at the floor.**

**“What was so fascinating, pray tell, that you could not drag yourself away for your standing appointment, hey?”**

**“I was giving Jacky his lessons. He is so very clever.” Queeney said.**

**“Jacky?” Johnson frowned. “Jacky, hey? That grubby little neighbour boy?”**

**“He is Queeney’s latest pet.” Mrs Thrale said. “She is more enchanted with him than any puppy, any kitten, any pony, indeed even more than with those conies she found last year.”**

**“Well, Miss Queeney, you wish to be a great learned lady, do you not? A great learned lady does not have time to teach sums to grubby little boys who belong in dame school.” Johnson said crossly. He had no affection for any little boy whatever, all of whom were grubby in his estimation and all of whom he viewed as only slightly more desirable company than scum-covered toads. Little girls entranced him and no little girl ever had more than Queeney, upon whom he utterly doted, sometimes to her own mother’s barely veiled jealousy. “Surely we should finish your lesson and you may stay up late for your Mama’s rout tonight. The famous Sir Joseph Banks and his friend and colleague, Dr Solander are coming to tell us all about their adventures in the South Seas with sacks full of curiosities. They are bringing your mama a pineapple. Should you not wish to hear them?"**

**“If I should have to give up my Jacky, then no, I shan’t be a great learned lady.” Queeney said and her eyes flashed and she stamped her foot. Mrs Thrale gasped.**

**“Hester Maria Thrale! You shall apologise this instant or your Jacky shall be sent home post haste and shan’t be back for the rest of the summer.” Mrs Thrale said, drawn up fully in her dudgeon, glaring at her daughter so fiercely that Queeney actually shrank back.**

**“Yes, Mama.” Queeney said. “I beg your pardon, Sir.” She hung her head, for she was very fond of Johnson.**

**“Do not be so hard on the child on my account.” Johnson said. “She has a motherly little heart, may God bless her, the darling. Come and get your kiss, my dear and then you may go back to your Jacky.” Queeney came and embraced him and he kissed her cheek. “Now, Sweeting, promise me that you shan’t forget our lesson tomorrow.”**

**“I promise, Sir.” Queeney said and he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it and she curtsied again to the both of them.**

**"Am I to meet this Jacky?" Samuel Johnson said. "I should like to see him, if he is presentation-ready." Queeney beamed.**

**"He is just outside the door, Sir." She said, her smile lighting her entire face. "Jacky, my dear, come in and make your acquaintance with Mr Johnson." She was proud to present him, for she had bathed him the night before and he was freshly starched, washed and immaculately clean, not having been dressed when he breakfasted and she had washed his face and hands until he was rosy.**

**Jack came in and looked timidly at the great man and bowed.**

**"How do you do, Sir?" He said as he had been taught.**

**"I do very well, I thank you." Johnson said. "What is your name?"**

**"John Aubrey, Sir." Jack said, looking at his feet, for Samuel Johnson's face quite frightened him. He was not at all a pleasant looking man: childhood tuberculosis had disfigured his face, his eyes were sunken and his poor sight left him continually squinting in a frown to actually be able to see. His tics and palsy made his wig shake in a most distracting manner and his mien was entirely forbidding.**

**"John Aubrey, eh? I am Samuel Johnson."  Johnson said and he shook Jack's fat little hand, so much like a puppy's oversized paw. "I believe that I have met your father. Which is your house?"**

**"Woolcombe, Sir."**

**"Do you mind Miss Queeney? You must mind everything she says or I shall have you sent packing directly. Do you understand?" Jack nodded.**

**"Yes, Sir."**

**"Very good. Now listen to Queeney and she shall make a great man out of you." Mrs Thrale laughed throatily and Queeney frowned at her and took Jack's hand.**

**"It was a pleasure to meet you, Sir." Jack said, bowing again.**

**"The pleasure was mine, young pup." The famous author said. "Now mind Miss Queeney, hey? Miss, give me one more kiss." Queeney kissed him and curtsied again.**

**"Come, Jacky," Queeney said and they left the conservatory, walking back towards the breakfast room. Jack stopped.**

**"Shall he really send me away?” Jack said, looking up into her face, tears welling up in his eyes.**

**“No, you silly chicken.” She said, kissing him and stroking his hair. “He shan’t, for he shall never do anything that would make me sad. He shan’t allow Mama to send you away, for all I have to do is weep and it should give him such an attack of apoplexy that Mama will do whatever he says. But you must be a good boy and mind me, Jacky, for Mr Johnson is very wise. And you shall be a great man, just as he said, of that I am absolutely certain.”**

 

Jack poured himself the last of the sherry.

“Well, you must have minded Lady Keith, for you are now, indeed, a great man. Dr Johnson was entirely correct.” Jack laughed. “That is one of the few declarations he ever made that I agree with him without reservation.”

“I think the whole debacle with her mother after Henry Thrale died, besides the fact that she married a Papist -- I think Queeney too, thought Mrs Thrale would marry Johnson. I think she wanted that very much because it would have made him so very happy and she loved him so, as much as her own father, perhaps even more. They were a strange trio, Queeney,Samuel Johnson and Mrs Thrale."

“But he was significantly older than she. Thirty-two years, if I recall correctly. And he was in very poor health.” Stephen said.

“I know that, Stephen, but I think Queeney believed that the announcement killed poor Johnson. He died within six months of the marriage. I believe that is why she never forgave Mrs Thrale -- I mean Mrs Piozzi. They are still estranged to this day. It seemingly put her off marriage as well. Lord Keith spent sixteen years to get her to marry him.”

“Tis a miracle they had issue.” Stephen said, “She must have been well over forty when the baby was born, perhaps as much as forty-five."

“Indeed.” Jack said. “I thought she would have had a dozen babies, she loved children so.”

“She loved you, Jack, not necessarily all children.” Jack smiled a little sadly.

"I suppose it all worked out for the best, though I had always thought I would be godfather to her firstborn son.” Stephen said nothing. Lady Keith’s daughter’s godfathers were the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence.

“You were most fortunate to have such a friend, joy.”

“How well I know it. How different my life would have been had I never wandered into their garden.” Jack said. The candles were guttering. “Killick there!” The door opened and Killick’s sharp nose entered first, followed by the rest of him. “I am turning in for the night. Three bells in the morning watch if you please and Lady Keith sent me a hamper of kippers I should very much like with breakfast tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.” Killick said, coming in to get their things.

“Are you turning in now, Stephen?” Jack said, looking at the inky blackness out the stern windows.

“In a little while, soul.” Stephen said, looking at his watch.

“Well, goodnight then.” Jack said and he staggered off to his cot, thinking of all the times Queeney had put him to bed, how happy it had made him and how much more companionable it was to not sleep alone.


End file.
